Bulletins

Hawaii Tribune-Herald negotiations lack aloha spirit

Members of the Hawaii Tribune-Herald bargaining committee caucused during talks Wednesday and Thursday in Honolulu. Management has shown little interest in serious bargaining, refusing to narrow a huge list of takeaway demands including a big jump in health care costs, pay freeze, end of seniority protection against layoff, unfettered right to subcontract two departments and onerous “social media policy.” From left, Heather Ahue, Derrick DePledge, Colin Stewart and Alicia Tanaka. PMWG photo 2013.

Your bargaining committee met with representatives of the company on Wednesday and Thursday in Waikiki to discuss a new collective bargaining agreement.

The guild suggested that the scope of the negotiations be narrowed to focus on about a half dozen priority issues, including wages, job security, medical and management rights.

The guild proposed a pay raise, signing bonus, and a one-year no layoff clause but also indicated that workers would be willing to pay a greater share of medical insurance premiums – 5 percent for Kaiser, up from zero; 15 percent for HMSA and HPH, up from 10 percent. The company would pay 95 percent of Kaiser premiums and 85 percent of HMSA and HPH premiums.

The guild also proposed that management be allowed to subcontract work in the mailroom and ad production through voluntary termination incentives, or buyouts. If an insufficient number of workers volunteer and layoffs become necessary, the no layoff clause would be lifted and the workers targeted would be eligible for enhanced severance packages.

The company rejected most of the guild’s proposals but took the subcontracting recommendation under advisement.

The company also proposed to cover 75 percent of medical insurance premiums, up from 72.5 percent in the company’s last offer. Under the existing contract, the company covers 100 percent of the Kaiser premiums and 90 percent of the HMSA and HPH premiums.

The guild has told the company that greater cost sharing for medical would only be considered in the context of wage increases. The company has proposed no wage increases.

The guild also presented the company with an extensive information request to help the guild respond to the wide range of contract changes the company has sought since talks began last August. The information request was prompted by the company’s decision not to narrow the scope of the negotiations.

The next round of negotiations is scheduled for June 5 and June 6 in Hilo.

MEANWHILE…..the Honolulu office is moving……

The Hawaii Guild has long been based in the Hawaii Government Employees Association building at 888 Mililani St., near the historic seat of Hawaii’s independent monarchy. The new office is smaller, adjacent to the old office, but still fits both Honolulu headquarters of the Guild and Typographical Union.

Business manager Heather Ahue was surrounded by boxes and decades’ worth of union paperwork on Friday while moving the Pacific Media Workers Guild’s Hawaii operations into compact new office space in Honolulu. PMWG photo 2013.

Filed Under: Bulletins, Hawaii, Newspaper contracts Tagged With: Hawaii Tribune-Herald, health care, no layoff clause, Pacific Media Workers Guild, Stephens Media, subcontract

Hearst replays its tired dirge in negotiations

SF Chronicle-Guild
Bargaining Bulletin #21

Chronicle Guild negotiators broke off talks Tuesday with the Hearst Corp. after enduring yet another rendition of the same old company song and dance routine.

Talks for a new labor agreement at the Chronicle have been under way for nearly a year, focusing mainly on pay and health care benefits. The management has shown no willingness to reach a fair compromise since proposing last fall to move Chronicle Guild members into the management health plan, raising our costs dramatically even after taking a proposed 1.5 percent annual pay raise into account.

When talks resumed Tuesday, the union team made it clear that we expect better from Hearst. We told the Hearst lawyers, who met with us via videoconference from New York, that the company could settle with our committee in one of two ways:

Limit the health care premium increases our members could face in 2015 and 2016, the last two years of the proposed four-year contract; or
Sweeten its pay offer for the two out-years.

The company seems to have difficulty accepting the fact that its offer amounts to a pay cut for most of our members, assuming our members keep about the same level of medical coverage after transitioning into the Hearst benefit plan. We could avoid the big pay cuts only by accepting a Hearst option of cheap “high deductible” health coverage, which would mean that members would bear huge medical bills if they ever need more than wellness visits.

As usual, the Hearst lawyers simply repeated their now aging October 2012 proposal, showing no interest in moving toward a rational settlement.

Talks ended after about 90 minutes. No new dates were scheduled. Afterward, the Guild contacted the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to see if a federal mediator might help us find a way to fruitful discussions.

We will take all appropriate steps to be sure our members are heard. As Guild Executive Officer Carl Hall said during negotiations today, “We have many eloquent members in this guild. We have been trying to convey a message to Hearst that our members do not accept what looks like a pay cut. Management has refused to acknowledge that. I guess we have not been eloquent enough. We are going to find ways to be more eloquent so that Hearst can hear us.”

Present: Mike Cabanatuan, Autumn Grace, Carl Hall and Kat Anderson for the Guild.

Suzy Cain, Cathy Rommelfanger, Aryn Sobo (via video) and Carolene Eaddy (via video) for Management.

Filed Under: Bulletins, Chronicle, Newspaper contracts Tagged With: Carl Hall, Chronicle, collective bargaining, Guild, Health insurance, Hearst, Hearst Corporation, Hearst song and dance, newspaper negotiations, San Francisco Chronicle

Hearst resistant to honoring the sacrifices of Chronicle workers

San Francisco Chronicle unit
Bargaining Bulletin #20

Guild bargainers on Monday pressed our demand for the Hearst Corp. to improve its offer on pay and health coverage, focusing primarily on protecting take home pay in 2015 and 2016 – the last two years of a proposed four-year contract.

The Guild has been demanding at least 2 percent pay increases in 2014, 2015 and 2016. We also are seeking new money to keep health care premiums down, a way to preserve our affordable Kaiser HMO plan for those who choose it, and a way for Guild members to opt for a non-Kaiser option under the Hearst benefits system.

Hearst refuses to go beyond its initial offer of 1.5 percent each year of the four-year term. The Company also wants to bring all our Chronicle employees into the Hearst corporate health care system – forcing our existing Guild health and welfare plan out of business. Costs for Kaiser members and for family coverage would be dramatically higher.

Both the Guild and management are proposing a 1.5 percent retroactive increase for the first year. Talks Monday focused on closing the gap for future years, either by increasing the pay raise or limiting the amount by which employee health costs could rise.

As has been the pattern lately, Hearst negotiators offered no change in the Company’s position and indicated no interest in the Guild’s proposed compromise regarding 2015 and 2016.

Also on Monday, bargainers discussed legal details concerning another possible way to provide health benefits to the Chronicle employees through a merger with a trust fund sponsored by the ILWU. We are seeking information from administrators of the ILWU plan.

We have been frustrated by management’s seeming inability to grasp the source of the frustration among our members over the pay and health care situation.

Chronicle Guild members sacrificed for many years to help keep the company afloat and protect quality journalism for the Bay Area. We agreed to give up a 2 percent raise in 2010, in exchange for the company’s agreement to divert the one-year cost of the raise into a one-time contribution into health benefits.

Members expected Hearst would come to a fair agreement to maintain health benefits after 2010, assuming the Chronicle turned around. But even though profit-sharing is now being discussed for management employees, Hearst refuses to contribute even a dollar more for affordable health care benefits. The Company has made it clear that a primary goal is to avoid any restrictions on future cost increases.

More talks are scheduled for Tuesday, May 7.

Present: Mike Cabanatuan, Autumn Grace, Carl Hall and Kat Anderson for the Guild.

Suzy Cain, Cathy Rommelfanger, Aryn Sobo (via video), Carolene Eaddy (via video), Peter Rahbar (via video) for Management.

Filed Under: Bulletins, Chronicle, Newspaper contracts Tagged With: Carl Hall, Chronicle, collective bargaining agreement, Guild, health care costs, Health insurance, Hearst, Kaiser, San Francisco, take home pay

Chronicle members pick up the pace

Yesterday Chronicle guild members took a walk-about on their break-time to discuss Hearst’s offer to increase the costs of their family health care. At least the sun was shining. Photo by Gloria LaRiva 2013.

San Francisco Chronicle Unit
Bargaining Bulletin #19

Hearst lawyers brought nothing new to the bargaining table Thursday when talks
resumed for a new Guild contract at the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Guild offered the outline of an amended comprehensive proposal that we handed to
Hearst on March 4. The Guild committee suggested we would increase the employee
share of health premiums, provided our Chronicle membership be protected against
unreasonable cost increases in the last two years of a four-year labor agreement.

We also offered new details – including specific cost information for all plan options
– about our proposed merger of our membership into a health plan sponsored by
the ILWU.

We received no new formal response from Hearst on Thursday. More talks are
scheduled for Monday. Our committee has made it clear that we expect Hearst to
show its best offer very soon or it risks an escalating labor dispute in San Francisco.

But on Thursday, company representatives said Hearst simply is not willing to
increase the amount it pays for Guild members’ health care, nor is the company
willing to consider pay increases larger than the 1.5 percent offered. They repeated
the core message delivered by Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega in a recent letter
to employees: The company is offering the Guild the chance to join the Hearst
corporate health insurance program under the same terms and at the same costs as
management employees. Period.

The corporate lawyers call it a “same-as” proposal, meaning the terms would be the
same for management and union staff. But Carl Hall, the Guild’s spokesman at the
bargaining table, told the Hearst team: “It’s not the ‘same-as,’ because the Guild pay
is not the same as the management’s.”

Hall told Hearst its employees are unhappy with the company offer because the
Guild staff made many concessions in 2005 and 2009 to save the Chronicle. Now
that profits appear to be back, and management employees are even being offered
profit-sharing, union workers resent being told that we must sacrifice yet again.

Guild members get their health coverage now through a union-administered Health and Welfare
plan that has low costs for employees but has received no additional money from
Hearst since 2005, despite double-digit increases from the insurers nearly
every year. The union’s goal in the bargaining is to close the deficit in the health
program while protecting take-home pay and quality coverage, but Hearst has
shown little regard for meeting either of those goals.

The Hearst-proposed health benefits cost substantially more than the comparable
Guild coverage now offered, particularly for families and people enrolled in the
Kaiser HMO.

Hearst representatives Thursday accused the Guild of unfairly “bashing” the Hearst
company health plan, an apparent reference to the union membership’s recent
campaign on Twitter and Facebook demanding fair terms on health care and pay.
The same message was conveyed again Thursday afternoon in a mass break taken
by nearly all Chronicle Guild employees. Marchers circled the building at Fifth and
Mission wearing red and carrying placards.

The corporate complaint, in essence, was that we keep asking the same question:
Why doesn’t Hearst offer enough money, or cheaper benefit costs, so we don’t have
to suffer a pay cut or sacrifice the health coverage needed by our families?

“You’re wasting time,” said one Hearst representative.

Representing the Guild: Michael Cabanatuan, Matthai Kuruvila, Kat Anderson,
Autumn Grace and Carl Hall.

Representing the management: Suzy Cain, Cathy Rommelfanger, Peter Rahbar, Aryn
Sobo, Carolene Eaddy. (Eaddy and Rahbar participated by videoconference.)

Filed Under: Bulletins, Chronicle, Newspaper contracts Tagged With: Carl Hall, collective bargaining, Guild, health care, Hearst, high cost of health care, Pacific Media Workers Guild, San Francisco Chronicle, Twitter

Bay City News members ratify a new three-year contract

Bay City News Service
Bargaining Bulletin #3

Bay City News Service Guild members unanimously ratified a new three-year contract last night that improves pay and other benefits, while avoiding any concessions.

Nearly the entire Bay City membership participated in the Monday night meeting and vote, conducted in a conference room a few floors below the newsroom at Fox Plaza in San Francisco.

The agreement calls for a 1.5 percent pay increase on employee anniversary dates this year, a 2 percent increase in 2014 and another 2 percent in 2015.

The company also agreed to sweeten its match on 401(k) contributions, add two more vacation days for veterans with 10 or more years’ experience, and strengthen the pay scale by raising the minimum pay for new hires.

The Guild contract also maintains company-paid health care benefits – a major plus at a time of escalating health care costs. Although other Guild employers are demanding givebacks to cover their benefit expenses, Bay City News owner Wayne Futak came to the table with no notion of tinkering with the health care arrangement for his Guild-covered employees.

“Wayne not conceding that health care thing is huge,” said Chris Nguon, who works the sports desk. “That’s pretty significant. Kudos to Wayne.”

The members voted 15-0 in a secret ballot to ratify the contract. The Media Workers local Executive Committee and The Newspaper Guild contracts committee in Washington, D.C., also have approved the deal.

The contract took effect April 1.

Representing the Guild: Jeff Shuttleworth (unit chair), Hannah Albarazi and Kat Anderson (Guild staff).

Representing the management: Wayne Futak and James Beard of Beard Affiliates.

Filed Under: Bulletins, Newspaper contracts Tagged With: 401(k) match, Bay City News Service, Fox Plaza, James Beard, Kat Anderson, Newspaper Guild, No concessions, Pacific Media Workers Guild, pay raise, vacation, Wayne Futak

Play the Hearst health care game

We have designed a game that allows you to plug in your weekly pay, indicate what Guild health benefits you currently have and then select possible Hearst choices from the “same as” management plan. This game will calculate what your pay will look like after a modest increase and any changes in the contributions you will have to make to the Hearst-sponsored benefits.

Click here to play the game.

Filed Under: Bulletins, Chronicle, Newspaper contracts Tagged With: Guild, health care, Health insurance, Hearst, San Francisco Chronicle, Twitter

Workers walk circles around Chronicle

At least a hundred Chronicle Guild members and allies took a break together today at 3:15 pm to circle the Chronicle building at 5th and Mission in San Francisco.

We did this to show our solidarity and to help convince the Hearst Corp, which owns the Chronicle, that we are willing to fight for a fair contract. Hearst has offered small pay increases in each year of a four-year contract, but demands most of us endure even larger spikes in health care costs after moving into a Hearst-managed benefits plan.

Right now, our jointly run Guild plan is running a deficit caused by low weekly contributions from the company.

Chronicle publisher Frank Vega issued a message to Guild employees today before the workers took their mass break. We sent our own statement a short time afterward. We hope real negotiations resume soon, and have proposed dates in early April.

Today’s walk-around was the largest Guild event since a rally last October 25. Most members wore red — shirts, buttons, slacks, socks, ties — as they cheerfully strolled around the Chronicle building. “I walked around the building today and brought the corporation to its knees,” said long-time columnist Carl Nolte, a former president of the Guild. “The company needs to come up with more affordable health care.”

Today’s action comes on the heels of a successful Twitter campaign that Chronicle journalists engaged in on Monday. About 200,000 tweets and re-tweets went out from the journalists’ red square avatars. Read more about that by clicking here.

Filed Under: Bulletins, Chronicle, Demonstrations, Newspaper contracts Tagged With: Chronicle, demonstration, Facebook, health care, Hearst, journalists, mass break, Pacific Media Workers Guild, protest, Twitter

Hearst Health Care 2013 – will the Chronicle be fair?

Michael Cabanatuan urges the Chronicle to do right by the people who helped it. Photo by Mike Kepka 2013.

My name is Michael Cabanatuan. Like most of my co-workers, I love working for the Chronicle.

I never expected to make big money writing for a newspaper, even though it’s a demanding, often stressful job. None of us did. But we did expect to be paid decent, if modest, salaries we could live on, good health insurance, a reasonable amount of time off and some retirement.

We showed our love for the Chronicle a few years ago when times were tough by sacrificing pay raises, vacation time and holidays and by letting Hearst end our pension plan. Our donations to the Hearst Corp. — not to mention our hard work — have helped turn the Chronicle toward profitability. (Not that they’ve ever said thank you.) No, Hearst has simply taken — and taken advantage of our love for journalism and for the Chronicle.

Now, when Hearst should be showing us a little love, and recognizing our contributions, the corporation wants to force us to pay huge increases for health care coverage under an inferior plan. Yeah, they’re offering a pay raise – a whopping 1.5 percent on wages that even the company admits are too low.

It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to figure out that this is a significant pay cut. All of us will lose hundreds, some will lose thousands, of dollars a year – even after the pay raises are factored in. And many of us, myself included, will be forced to question whether we can afford to continue to work at the Chronicle in the jobs we love.

Find this on Facebook.

Filed Under: Bulletins, Chronicle, Newspaper contracts Tagged With: health care, healthcare, healthprofile, Hearst, Michael Cabanatuan, Pacific Media Workers Guild, San Francisco Chronicle

Hostile management attacks union as Hilo talks resume

From left, Derrick DePledge, local vice-president Pacific Media Workers-Hawaii; Gregg Hummer, advertising; and Colin Stewart, newsroom. Not pictured: Heather Ahue, Hawaii business manager. Photo by Carl Hall 2013

Hawaii Tribune-Herald unit
Bargaining Bulletin

Our Guild bargaining committee met with representatives of Stephens Media, owner of the Hilo-based Hawaii Tribune-Herald, on March 14 and March 15 in Honolulu for contract negotiations that centered on economic issues such as health care costs.

The company outlined the rationale for several proposals with an economic impact. The company wants subcontracting rights to downsize the number of employees in the mailroom and in ad production/operations. The company also wants to remove seniority as the primary factor during layoffs.

The company is not offering any wage increases and cautioned that a pay cut is possible if negotiations take too long and the economy worsens.

Calling the existing health care provisions in the contract “unrealistically generous,” the company has proposed paying 72.5 percent of monthly medical insurance premiums, down from 100 percent of the Kaiser plan and 90 percent of the HMSA plan.

The company has agreed to establish a pre-tax premium payment plan, which would likely reduce costs for workers and the company.

The Guild, recognizing the challenge of containing health care costs, has suggested that the company cover 95 percent of the Kaiser plan and 85 percent of the HMSA plan, a 5 percent increase in the premium share for workers.

But the Guild proposes that the increase be offset by annual raises of 5 percent in a three-year contract. The Guild contends that raises are justified because pay has not kept pace with the cost of living over the past decade and workers would be exposed to higher health insurance costs under both the Guild’s and the company’s contract proposals. The state’s economy is slowly improving, so workers who suffered during the recession should share in the financial gain.

The negotiations opened on March 14 with a conflict. Michael Zinser, the lead negotiator for Stephens Media, refused to answer a question from Carl Hall, the chief negotiator for the Guild, about why the company proposed deleting a provision in the existing contract that prohibits the company from interfering with the operation of the Guild.

During a caucus, the Guild filed an unfair labor practices charge with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that the company was not bargaining in good faith.

Zinser later explained that the company wants to delete the union security provisions in the contract so that union participation would no longer be a condition of employment. He claimed the ban on company interference with the Guild is not needed. Hall said he disagreed with that characterization, and maintained Zinser still had not explained the company’s real purpose in making the proposed change.

Filed Under: Bulletins, Hawaii Tagged With: Carl Hall, contract, Hawaii Tribune-Herald, Honolulu, Insurance, jurisdiction, National Labor Relations Board, Pacific Media Workers Guild, Stephens Media, union security, union-busting

Talks begin for new Purple Communications ASL interpreter unit

Purple Comm Bargaining Comm. Front row: Mary Jane Moore, NUC, Arizona; Bruce Meachum PMWG staff; Jo Linda Greenfield, AVC Denver; Laurie Rivard, AVC Oakland. Back row: Lindsey Antle, NVC Denver; Martin Yost, NVC San Diego; Margie Brooks, NVC Oakland; Michelle Caplette, NVC Arizona; Norma Villegas, AVC San Diego.

Purple Communications unit
Bargaining Bulletin #1

In an historic first, representatives of Purple Communications met with a Pacific Media Workers Guild Local 39521 bargaining team in a San Francisco hotel yesterday. The meeting kicked off negotiations for a labor agreement to cover Purple’s Video Interpreters in the Arizona, Denver, Oakland and San Diego centers.

Representing the company were Attorney Robert Kane; Vice President of Human Resources Tanya Monette; Vice President of Operations Fran Cummings; and Denver Center Director Danelle Jansen.

The stage for the meeting was set last October when employees from those four centers voted to be represented by PMWG and its parent union, The Newspaper Guild/Communications Workers of America.

After a somewhat rocky start caused by confusion about the actual meeting location, the two teams got down to business. Both sides came with proposals, and both proposals included a “just-cause” provision; a grievance procedure; and binding third-party arbitration if differences cannot be resolved. The language of those proposals was considerably different, and those differences will have to be worked out in future bargaining sessions. But the fact that the two sides seemingly agreed in principle that the contract will include those very basic tenets of any labor agreement was seen as a positive sign by the union team.

A just-cause provision will require the company to have a good reason to discipline an employee. Without such a provision, employees may be disciplined or fired for pretty much any reason and, unless a discipline violates anti-discrimination laws, management’s decisions are not challengeable in any meaningful way.

While differing considerably in their approaches, both sides’ proposals included language covering what would happen in the event of a layoff and anti-discrimination clauses.

Probably the most controversial proposal from the company is one that defines full-time employees as those who work 36 or more hours a week, rather than the 32 hours that is now the standard. Under the company’s proposal, anyone who is “regularly scheduled to work for less than 36 hours per workweek” is a non-benefited employee. The company argued that it wants the change because it “wants to get more out” of its full-time employees.

Much of the rest of the company’s proposal involved legal issues that are unlikely to interest anyone beyond the bargaining team, but two noteworthy proposals in their offer were a health and safety clause and a “reasonable accommodation” for disabled employees provision.

For its part, beyond the provisions already described plus union-shop and dues-deduction procedures, the union did not make proposals on many matters of concern, and will do so at later sessions. The shortage of union proposals was primarily due to the fact that we had not been provided information we need to formulate our proposal prior to the meeting. Purple representatives promised to move to provide that information promptly.

No proposals were presented concerning economic issues like wages, health benefits, paid leave and the like. The two sides agreed that we will bargain over non-economic contract items before moving to the money matters.

After a lengthy hiatus caused by scheduling conflicts, the two sides will next meet in San Diego on April 18. The precise location of the meeting will be announced well in advance of the meeting and individual VIs are encouraged to attend as observers.

PMWG Purple Communications Unit
National Bargaining Team:
Mary Jane Moore, Arizona: National Unit Chair
Lindsey Antle, Denver: National Vice Chair
Margie Brooks, Oakland: National Vice Chair
Michelle Caplette, Arizona: National Vice Chair
Martin Yost, San Diego: National Vice Chair
Bruce Meachum, PMWG Representative: Chief Spokesperson

Also serving on the bargaining team for Tuesday were Jo Linda Greenfield, Denver Assistant Vice Chair (AVC) Laurie Rivard, Oakland AVC; and Norma Villegas, San Diego AVC.

Filed Under: Bulletins, Purple Communications Tagged With: American Sign Language, Arizona, Denver, Employment, Fran Cummings, Oakland, Pacific Media Workers Guild, Purple Communications, Robert Kane, San Diego, San Francisco, video relay

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